I
n what was his 50th PGA Tour start, Chico native Kurt Kitayama captured Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational in March for his first PGA Tour win.
Kitayama, who played in NCGA events as a junior and was nicknamed ‘The Project’ at UNLV due to the amount of work his game needed, certainly earned it.
At one point six players owned a share of the final round lead before Kitayama broke through with a clutch 14-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th and sensational par on the 18th.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said Kitayama, who’d previously been a runner-up three times on tour. “Just to get your first win, I think, is an unbelievable thing. Lucky enough to have it at a special place, so that’s a bonus.”
Kitayama, who was profiled in the Spring 2020 issue of NCGA Golf, could’ve easily wilted following a triple-bogey on the 9th after his drive went out of bounds. Instead, he only became more resilient, thanks in part to his caddie Tim Tucker, who was on the bag when fellow NorCal native Bryson DeChambeau won the event in 2021.
“I fought back. I’m proud about that,” said Kitayama, whose tour nickname is ‘Quadzilla’ due to his lower-body strength.
Having entered the event with career earnings near $4 million, Kitayama nearly doubled that by earning $3.6 million in the elevated event. He also moved to 19 in the Official World Golf Ranking and left Arnie’s Kingdom as a player to keep an eye on.
“I think he's been playing pretty well,” Rory McIlroy graciously said of Kitayama. “He's sort of persevered and played wherever he could get starts, and all of a sudden he's won one of the biggest events on the PGA Tour. So good for him.”